Anyway, apropos of nothing whatever, this is just about stuff that makes me laugh. Here’s one:

A farmer has a talking dog. One day he says to the dog, “it’s getting dark–go bring the sheep into the pen for the night.” The dog replies, “consider it done,” and takes off. Shortly he returns and says, “okay, all 40 sheep present and accounted for.” The farmer says–slowly–“I only have 36 sheep.” The dog replies, “Yes, I know. I rounded up.”

I always heard it “Go round up the sheep and put them in the pen” instead of “go bring in the sheep”

That reminds me of my daredevil photography at an oil rig museum near Petrolia Ontario Canada. Still waiting for the camera cops to drop by - maybe with the mattress tag police and the ‘rinse and shampoo again’ moderators. We live on the brink of a precipice when it comes to our rights to tear off tags and skip the second shampoo. The horror! The FEAR!

And since when does an old tank qualify for the handicapped parking space??? These last two pics are from my home town of London ON. Still trying to find the one of the furniture store sign “Lovers, New and Used” (furniture)

I also find it interesting that two of his most popular films were not “his”–that is–he did not come up with the idea for them.

“Blazing Saddles” was originally written by Andrew Bergman and its title was “Tex X” (a play on Malcolm X).
Gene appeared in “Blazing Saddles” to help Mel get out of a jam. He originally hired Gig Young to play the part Gene ended up doing. Gig was going to play the grizzled town alky, but he was actually an alcoholic and became very ill on the first day of shooting. (I also heard that at one point, Mel offered the part to John Wayne, but after reading the script, Wayne said he just couldn’t do it–but he would be first in line to see it). So Mel was commiserating with Gene about losing a few days of shooting on top of not having an actor for the role. Gene flew to L.A., got acquainted with his horse on Saturday, got fitted for wardrobe on Sunday and they were filming on Monday

The idea for “Young Frankenstein” was Gene Wilder’s. When he meets Igor at the train station and the “pardon me boy, is this the Transylvania station?” are word for word what he originally wrote. Gene thought Mel wouldn’t be interested in directing something he didn’t write. Thank God he did direct it. My favorite scene in the whole movie is the scene with Peter Boyle and the “blind man,” whose identity was not revealed until the end of the movie. That actor (GH) should have been nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting actor. I also don’t understand why Cloris Leachman and Kenneth Mars were not nominated.

Mel tells the story somewhat differently. According to him, he loved Bergman’s idea but not his script. He brought Richard Pryor and a few others on board to overhaul it rather drastically. He says in fact that he couldn’t have done it without Pryor. As for Young Frankenstein, he says that Gene showed him his draft, that he loved the idea immediately, and they spent the rest of the conversation working out the casting. It’s true that the genesis of those two films came from elsewhere, but I’ve never heard Mel try to take credit for something he didn’t do. He certainly has done enough; The Producers was one of the finest comedies ever made in Roger Ebert’s opinion (and mine).

There’s a good story about that too. According to Mel, he wrote the character of Max Bialystock right from the get-go with Zero Mostel in mind, but Zero, who was notoriously difficult to work with, didn’t want to do it. So Mel enlisted his wife to nag him. Finally Zero called on the phone and growled, “Okay, you win, I’ll do it. My wife talked me into it.”

As far as I have been able to determine, the story about John Wayne is true too.

Another tidbit: Hackman’s parting line, “Wait! Where are you going? I was going to make espresso!” was ad-libbed, like Estelle Reiner’s line in When Harry Met Sally.

My favorite moments in Young Frankenstein (difficult to choose from among so many) are probably when Cloris Leachman is leading them up the stairs and tells them to stay close to the candles that aren’t lit, and when Madeline Kahn arrives at the castle. Wilder turns to Feldman and says, “Igor, help me with the bags.” Feldman drops into a Groucho Marx dialect and responds, “Soitenly. You take the blonde and I’ll take the one in the turban.”

One of my favorite Young Frankenstein moments is the conversation between Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman surrounding the correct pronunciations of “Franken-stine” v. “Franken-steen” and “Eee-gor” v. “Eye-gor”. A classic that nearly makes me pee my Jockeys-for-Her every time!